Wilstart News

FRIDAY, July 31, 2015 – Treatment costs for one childhood illness, hemophilia, may use up a big chunk of a state's Medicaid budget, a new study out of California shows. The researchers found that treatments for hemophilia – a rare, inherited disorder in which blood does not clot normally – accounted for the largest share of spending on outpatient drugs among publicly insured children in California with serious chronic illnesses. The study "underscores the potential effect of new, expensive but [effective] pharmaceuticals on public insurance programs for children with chronic illness," wrote a group led by Sonja Swenson of Stanford University. Her team published the findings July 28 in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The researchers tracked 2010-2012 data from more than 34,300 publicly insured children and young adults under the age of 21 in California with serious ... Read more